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Why Gotenna Mesh off-grid communications devices may be superior in some use-cases to Ham radios (e.g. BaoFeng…) like maybe at Burning Man? Top 20ish reasons why Gotenna is better than Ham (or complements it) and some minor suggestions on installation BEFORE deployment:

There was a recent exploit talk regarding the Gotenna Mesh at DefCon 26 Wireless village last weekend, Saturday, August 11, 2018. If your OpSec is important, the talk is definitely worth a diligent listen (below), the updated slides should be reviewed from the author, and update to the latest Gotenna Mesh app would be prudent. I’ve tried to keep my comments accessible to people of all technical backgrounds.

IMHO, it was a good talk, shared many vulnerabilities and cautions… but may be moot in view of new versions in app store. Touch base (download new offline install .apks) quickly if deploying soon.

Gotenna seems to be getting out in front of this issue, but the talk and author seemed a bit biased against Gotenna “toys.” While he makes many solid points for HAM BaoFeng radios as superior to Gotenna Mesh devices, … I’ve respectfully provided some counter-points to consider why Gotenna (or Sonnet Labs Mesh or Contact #CallForCode) may be superior to Ham in some instances, with some users, in some jurisdictions.

Pros of Gotenna Mesh vs. Ham Radio (Top 20ish reasons)

• price is actually $143 ish for TWO ($70ish each) get the volunteer, first-responder discount or bulk discounts or used ones on ebay
• not waterproof or playa-proof, but ip66 milspec-ish? Held up pretty well in our real world Hurricane / wildfire tests by DHS DMAT, Puerto Rico Piratas, and CERT units (even Chelsea couldn’t destroy one;) they survive multiple drone drops from tens of feet.
• +cannot beat it’s simplicity… and familiarity using own phone (android / iOS/ smartwatch). Anyone who can use an iphone can use one. Designed idiot-proof. Simple. It just works.
• +Gotenna mesh works with waterproof devices that survivors and first responders already have on them (and are likely to take in field, on the run, or in shelter)… iwatch, iphone, samsung, sonim xp8, cat phone… milspec devices with GPS and aGPS and cell sector built in.
• +does provide FREE SMS text message relay/ remote twitter posts/ twillio / custom web server backhaul digipeter functionality like APRS (Mesh Developer Toolkit and/or GotennaPlus free trial) and scripting. Open source.
• +ULTRAlow power efficiency and efficacy -=functions at 1 watt versus 5–8 watts Bao Feng for sameish line of sight (LOS) incredibly .6 to 2 to 5 miles, even 62 miles via drone. Physics are a bxtch.
• +(only draws 100milliamps!) less than a watt…charges with any microusb, solar, or cell charger, can even use your phonecharger or your phone itself (usb-c or otg) to charge gotenna FROM THE PHONE! Can you charge a BaoFeng FROM your phone with a $4 cable? or a shxtty keychain solar cell? Need at least 8watts 12Volts to charge a BaoFeng ham radio compared to 1watt 4.74V for Gotenna Mesh.
• +6 hop functionality without ANY infrastructure. Your message can bounce off of other nodes up to six times. You can even hoist one or two gotenna permanent relays up in trees or on the roof for crazy range!
• +e911 text 911 hearing impaired emergency services may be possible in your area* Check local 10 digit backup number for county. 100% Text 911 available in Puerto Rico. Florida is only about 80%. Nevada seems to be covered. Many states have coverage. Best to check before travelling.
• +does not require FCC licensure, tests, fees, classes like Baofeng / Ham does under FCC rules. ANY idiot can use Gotenna without any classes or tests or fees and there are safeguards baked-in to avoid them interfering with first responders, leos, and others. (e.g. 5 tx limit on user transmissions, ultra low bandwidth, text/gps only, short gps-tagged bursts which frequency hop and spread their spectrum FHSS, CSMA CD collision avoidance type listen-first before transmit politeness and steward of common spectrum.
• IIRC BaoFeng Hams are technically illegal to the extent they allow FRS GMRS at 5-8 watts?… whereas Gotenna is 100% legal and quiet 1watt polite short bursts (cannot block or overwhelm other signals) in all countries as it dynamically adjusts it’s frequency and broadcast power (and dutycycle, Tx limit) automatically based on gps location, congestion, and local laws.
• +try throwing your ham radio up a tree, flag pole, on the roof, on a drone up 400ft for better signal? Gotenna is only the size of a lighter. It’s rugged and it has CRAZY range when it’s 400 feet up in the air. Add a tiny $40 ATT iPhone CE with Mesh Developer Toolkit, and you have an entire cellular on wings COW cellular tower gateway digipeter in a box with even a DJI mavic pro. 26 minutes of air time. Tethered drone can stay up indefinitely with hotspot and gotenna. This is VERY useful in off-grid locations.
• +Ham radios and even BaoFengs are incredibly hard to use even for moderately experienced users. Have you ever tried getting them out of Chinese mode in the sun? shxt screens and shxt keyboards and shxt UI UX userinterference on Baofeng ham… vs Gotenna app UI UX high contrast interface with free offline topo maps and gps on Gotenna Mesh using your own primary device screen (superOLED Note 9 or Sonim XP8 what!? ;)).
• +Mesh Developer Toolkit FREE opensource enables beacon, status updates, backhaul, auto replies, … scripting, IFTTT, tasker, automate-it SDK integration — your imagination is the only limitation.
• +Free blueteam friendly tracking with GliderLink built on Gotenna App
• +Block/Mute malicious / spam / compromised nodes… full smartphone notification granularity by times, location, contact, quiet hours… vibrate/audible… totally customizable.
• +impossible for new users to accidentally block or jam an emergency channel (SDK limits to 5 tx per minute, tiny tiny messages, FHSS, w CSMACD collision avoidance type polite listening)
• +GPS /aGPS /triangulation capability for SAR, blueteam coordination
• +Automated Emergency SOS Beacon with preprogrammed message mode (device itself works even after phone dies or is lost). Any survivor can call for help simply, even if they lose consciousness by five taps on the gotenna button.
• +Bouncy castle open source encryption* (may be implemented poorly, beware) but the beauty is that you can roll your own homerolled or ANY encryption you like ON TOP of Gotenna’s and some disaster use-cases (Shout, Emergency Shout, SOS, psa) don’t necessarily even require encryption.
• +Frequency Hop Spread Spectrum FHSS noise resilience even in DefCon wireless village and capture the packet arenas. They even work at the Whitehouse and surrounding areas.
• +1 to 1 and selective group messaging. send messages to talkgroups, individuals, everything. Simple.
• +Read Receipt. Ping. Location requests. Automated responses. Automated tracking.
• +++*While the Defcon exploit speaker talks complete trash about Gotenna OpSec… in the 72 hours of DefCon and even with BlackHat attendees present, 30 thousand of the worlds most 1337 ha><ors (elite hackers, phreakers, rfs, hams and graybeards), NONE of the bountied$ gotenna foxes were caught or compromised, NONE of the flags were captured, communication was not interrupted— cash, pot, and ale (Oxford comma) went unclaimed even though foxes / flags hidden IN wireless village itself “spamming” shouts and clues.

Part 1 of Gotenna glitch / exposure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9pfwmi1khk&t=110s

Part 2: Continued

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwd2jZA5Zj4&t=58s

While he rightfully laments the requirements of an onboarded phone with 100 megabyte install and registration… Gotenna has taken a laissez faire approach to their .apk install file being allowed on third party servers (check google) so an admin could download the .apk for sharing with the wolfpack once on site at camp or in field even with no comms (memorystick, usb, wifi hotspot, bluetooth, airdrop, sd card… etc. for sideload) Thankfully, they have also relaxed registration of their app so that it can generate a random GID to avoid sms verification, registration — so you DO NOT need internet or cell service to install and configure gotenna app. Provided you download it before losing internet (or get it from a friend offline).

One such example of a good place for Gotenna is Burning Man’s Black Rock City… especially if the Rangers are getting donated several units.

TLDR; Best practices for deployment in Burning Man, Puerto Rico, California or off grid areas:

+Download the app and register before you go. 90+ megs isn’t easy over 3g.
+Download offline topo maps for the area (another several Mb)
+Plan 30 minutes to update firmware to latest version for Emergency SOS and doubled (6 hop) for each device
+If anyone within 6 hops of you has a signal (wifi, cell, or sat… anything) then ALL #ALLONE of you are able to send uni-directional messages to ANY phone number… even, perhaps text 911? Or your safety contact/ BR rangers. 6 TIMES THE LIKELIHOOD OF GETTING A MESSAGE OUT (signal diversity approach by using any available carrier, any available signal).
+Mesh Toolkit FREE lets you backhaul messages/binaries across the intra / internet
+30 day free GotennaPlus membership does text /sms relay across ANY signal.
+May want to keep Gotenna in the shade, maybe with breeze/ventilation, maybe in a ziplock, maybe superglue around edges for extra playa resistance.
+Any small solar panel will keep this charged all week (interpose a cellcharger if unattended relay atop mast). Use the shadow and point the solar southern at about 15% ish grade. You can ping the device if you know the GID to ensure it’s operational. Three button clicks should take you to relay mode to save power on LEDs and Bluetooth.
+TRY HAM FIRST Rangers and local EMS are on ham radio too (channel 5, 154.600 CTCSS/PL 97.4) to reach the Black Rock City Emergency Services Dispatch.
#SafetyThird
!+SHOUT and EMERGENCY SHOUT and SOS are UNENCRYPTED, public, cleartext promiscuous broadcast. (See Smith v. Maryland SCOTUS) thar be dragons ahead. GPS, metadata, phone number may leak…as expected. Maybe no privacy interest in this data? No warrant, no subpoena, nothing required perhaps? This may present HIPAA and First Amendment issues (see e.g. NAACP vs. Alabama holding by unanimous SCOTUS).
+ONLY direct messages are encrypted… Init error may expose (See youtube DefCon 26 talk) if required, roll your own. Anything you trust. Pre and post encrypt. Use an airgapped and upgraded iPhone imho.

!+Current vulnerabilities allow for impersonation and perhaps defeat of encryption! Beware of Social Engineering and always take anything you receive with a grain of salt. Seek out of band confirmation from trusted friends. Avoid giving away your location.

+Safest NOT TO RELY ON ANY ONE FORM OF COMMS; USE MULTIPLE FORMS OF COMMUNICATIONS!

If anyone has any problems, questions, or needs help, stop by Bronner’s FOAM camp Foam Against The Machine. Sophomoric expert on hand and glad to help. GIDS will be posted (remember impersonation is possible… and FBI bought some of these gotenna units for their academy- Feds have spent millions of public monies on Gotenna and In-Q-Tel IQT was their initial angel investor). #PrivacyCanary

In my humble opinion, the more appropriate comparison would be between the Gotenna PRO 5 watt Military Spec Hardened MilSpec 68 PRO version with detachable antenna, tunable frequencies, on the one hand, and a Moto/Yaesu/BaoFeng ham radio on the other hand.

As stated on Officer.com:

As humans, we have an innate survival instinct.  This instinct compels us to provide for ourselves first, those closest to us, our family, our children, our friends – above all others.  Sometimes though, it’s the survival of the species, nature as a whole, the greater good, the bigger picture that matters.  We found a loophole to mortality in our children. We selflessly provide for our children in hopes that they may have it better than us – that’s how we cheat death, how we overcome hardship.  But what if there’s a better way? What if the stranger across the street were a neighbor? What if the people across the sea on an island in the Caribbean weren’t just strangers you’ve seen on Fox news or CNN. What if they were you? What if they are you? What if we are all on the same team? What if helping your neighbor meant helping yourself? When you play soccer, you don’t need to score the goal to be the winner. By being there, by passing the ball, by shouting encouragement, by getting the ball closer to the goal, you’ve helped. You’ve truly lived.

Einstein said, that “a human being is part of the whole” called by us “universe.”  A person “experiences “[them]self, [their] thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest.” He described this as a mere “optical illusion” of our consciousness which serves as a “prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.”  Einstein encouraged us, and provides an eternal reminder, that “our task must be to free ourselves from this prison” by “widening our circle of compassion to embrace ALL living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Where did the 300 emergency communication devices meant to help during the next storms in Puerto Rico go?  Where did the donations go? Where did the millions in taxpayer funds to DHS, FEMA, DOD, DOJ go?

In our pursuit of decentralization, of community communications, in our pursuit of throwing off the shackles of a single intertwined monolithic governmental and telecommunications infrastructure that was fundamentally broken and unable to provide help, in the words of the Who, we fearlessly chanted, “we won’t get fooled again!” We threw off the chains and we simply brought in new bosses, chained ourselves to new single points of failure.  All bosses are the same.  A closed source mesh “decentralized” solution and a non-transparent non-profit do as they always do, as they’ve always done- they look out for themselves. They maximize profits, they protect their own.

Where are the emergency communications devices? Are they in the hardest hit parts of Puerto Rico? Are they in the hands of those that need them to effect emergency rescue from the mountains of Utuado? No, don’t be silly or naive. They are at Gotenna corporate warehouses in New York City.  Because they aren’t a disaster or humanitarian company. They weren’t paid enough. Why would they deliver on a promise? Why would they extend themselves to help people halfway around the world of different color, speaking a different language, who don’t have the money to buy Gotenna communications devices?

Where are the emergency communications devices? Are they deployed in a “critical communications backbone” for urgent relief and recovery efforts as promised – in the hard to reach areas hardest hit, away from San Juan airport? No, don’t be silly. Don’t be naive. You know humans by now. We look out for ourselves – above all others; so as we’ve always done, they are deployed where the money is, where the affluent are, where the administrators of the fundraiser are – protecting themselves and their families, their business interests, their partners, and friends.  

This weekend, we had an IBM Wolfpack sponsored #CallForCode hackathon for 36 hours in Bayamon, Puerto Rico at Engine 4 co-working lab where students, professors, and members of the public selflessly volunteered their time to develop emergency communications solutions for Puerto Rico and the world at large.  Meant to answer the question, when our abuela is in bed in the mountains and the towers fall next time, what will we do?  How can we coordinate first responders with local communities?

It was a beautiful thing. About a 100 hackers, selfless people, volunarios, programmers, organizers shared ideas, wrote code, debugged hardware, employed cutting-edge ai, OPEN mesh networks like LORA with open hardware like raspberry pi.  Gotenna is great and all, but they are closed source; as they repeatedly remind me, they aren’t a disaster or a humanitarian company. Hell, they aren’t even open on the weekends or after 5 – and sometimes the hurricane doesn’t have the courtesy to show up during banker’s hours (M-F 11-4pm).

So the community built, BORICUA built, they coded, they made their own damned network that no one can control, where the source code is in the public domain, where no patents, or copyrights, or share-holder profits can threaten their resiliency.  I met a man named Javier and his wife, both computer science professors, who taught their children to code, who built an open LOng RAnge (LoRA) Raspberry Pi mesh communications device, called CONTACT, better than some closed-source myopically profit-focused Gotenna. And they did it for $11 versus Gotenna’s $149. The whole family. The children presented the idea at #CallForCode. They shared how they felt lost and disconnected, how there was no way to call for help when the telephone lines, the internet, the wifi, the cellular, when nothing works.  How can we get a message out? How can we connect first responders and the community? How can we use artificial intelligence, to learn, big picture, what the people need? Are they angry? Is there water? How can we get the messages flowing, and use AI to focus our response and triage efforts? I cried. It was beautiful. This family saw the problem first hand. Did they cry about it? Give up? Seek outside help? Hell no, they built the damned thing. They made it work. They effected self-rescue for themselves, for their island, for their neighbors, and when the towers fall in your neighborhood, their devices (or those that borrow their ideas) will be what effects the rescue of your children.  Javier and his wife, may have won both the CallForCode hackathon and the MeshingWithData Hackathon, but we are the real winners.  They’ve selflessly shared their ideas and implementation with the rest of humanity, and perhaps bought us all a fighting chance for next time.

So, where ARE the Gotenna? Who cares. Contact is better, completely open source hardware and software, a tenth the cost, with ai built in, developed by GOOD PEOPLE that are in the business of humanitarian disaster relief and emergency communications.

Ok, but where’s the remainder of the donated $20,000 WHERE ARE THE MILLIONS SPENT BY DHS FEMA DOD on Gotenna?

Maybe they didn’t build a critical backbone of communication to enable the hardest hit regions of the island – spanning from sea to shining sea, over amber waves of platanos, or purple mountainous regions in their majesty. 

Maybe, just maybe, inadvertently, by NOT building a network, Starting Point has given us something better. The vacuum of nothingness has created a hard-felt need, that burning, that fear in your stomach that transcends self or our own myopic views or interests.  Another Javier and his family, in that absence, have stood up, put in the hard work, the tireless hours, and built a network, CONTACT, from the ground up… without millions of dollars or corporate sponsorship, without focusing on share-holder value.  Instead, like Einstein, focused on the good of the WHOLE, with a widened circle of compassion extending to all of nature, all of man and woman-kind, that works and that’s flexible enough to adapt to whatever the geography or contours of all the disasters yet to come.  Perhaps Javier Malave at Connecting Point saw the shortcomings of a closed-source product and closed-source, solely-profit-focused Gotenna, and instead reinvested the donated money into these MeshingWithData hackathons? Perhaps they didn’t build the short-sighted emergency gotenna network, but perhaps they’ve provided us with a better network?

 

 

 

 

 

TLDR Gotenna Update 5.0 7/13/2018 issues review 2 after 12 hours:

1. Update not working with some devices;
2. Firmware not updating on some devices;
3. Gotenna mesh device is freaking out after [irreversible?] firmware update;
4. Gotenna emergency device getting STUCK in Emergency Beacon mode spamming emergency messages and clogging channels?
5. While connection seems better, repeated lost connection requiring hard reboot of remote gotenna relay device after 3 hours;
6. Emergency Beacon mode failure;
7. ?6 hop limit imposed on Emergency SOS and beacon shouts?
8. ?is Gotenna plus sms / text relay being used for Emergency SOS beacon?
9. ?Still no update on Puerto Rico… still no 300 devices forming “critical backbone” for emergency communications in hardest hit regions. Even after $900,000 in Fed Gov taxpayer money and $16,629 crowd-source donations and $4,000 directly to Gotenna from Puerto Rico disaster relief?
10. Emergency Beacon broadcast messages NOT showing in notifications or Emergency chat transcript on sending device. (No log, no confirmation, read receipt…nothing).
11. Where is Puerto Rico on the downloadable maps?? Not included in US? Not worthy of its own Country listing? #NoLove? #PuertoRico
12. Where can we send logcat? or debug info? #imeshyou #gotenna #txtenna Gotenna @Gotenna https://medium.com/@frankbryan/tldr-gotenna-mesh-emergency-communications-review-2-of-update-5-0-app-and-firmware-80a04375e871

It’s now been almost a year since hurricanes Irma, Jose, Maria and countless mudslides tore into the heart of Puerto Rico, Florida, the USVI, and the Caribbean.  Much progress has been made. Power, communications, and water have been restored to much of the islands.  However, this progress is tenuous as we saw with even tropical storm Beryl. Light rains and wind can knock out 41,000 Puerto Rican families from the power and communications grid in the blink of an eye.  Even a few inches of rain can create catastrophic mudslides and flooding that close mountain passes and render towers inaccessible to receive diesel.  What will another Maria do?

Unfortunately, there has been NO PROGRESS whatsoever with Gotenna in the last year.  Out of the 300 emergency communications backup relays that were to be installed in Puerto Rico to help with relief efforts and serve through the 2018 hurricane season- none have been delivered, installed, or published since the original 16.  There are still no publicly available emergency relays other than the ones published on http://imeshyou.com for municipal San Juan and Barranquitas since November – still only 16 of the 300 have been published. Only 84 have been confirmed to have even shipped to Puerto Rico following the successful crowdsourced fundraiser on Razoo by Gotenna partnered with PR-Reconnects.  But we have no idea where they are – and first responders and survivors are unable to leverage them.  Worse, NONE of the Federal Emergency Management FEMA, Homeland Security DHS, Customs and Border Patrol CBP, or Coast Guard USCG nodes that our $900,000 in taxpayer funding payed for have made it to Puerto Rico or been published for first responder, NGO, or community use. None.  Even though Gotenna has taken literally millions from the U.S. Government, not a single emergency management communications relay or crowd-funded relay or donated node from Gotenna has made it’s way to the map to enable use by disaster victims or survivors – in stark contrast with Fema’s ICS/NIMS guidelines (“it is critical to know where… resources are located”).  And rather than answer any questions, Gotenna cries fake news and steadfastly refuses to answer.

Where’s the $900,000 in recent Federal Government spending on Gotenna? Where’s the $16,600 crowd-funding? Where’s the $4000 Gotenna took from the fundraiser for Puerto Rico disaster relief? Where are the 216 Gotenna meant to form a “critical backbone” for Puerto Rico relief, rebuild, and recovery- that never made it?  How many of the 84 have been installed with solar battery backup and iphone with sms or satellite backhaul – as promised?  Did Razoo indeed take 10% off the top from donations to aid Puerto Rico disaster recovery as alleged?

 

I guess we have to be content not knowing, because one thing is for damn sure: after a year of questions in every form possible, Gotenna is NOT answering.  Instead, Gotenna has deleted/censored any posts asking questions, ignored emails to customer service, even going so far as to banhammer, for literally a thousand years, any account raising a legitimate question about Puerto Rico or an update to the map of emergency relays.

 

…

…

Now for the good news: Gotenna HAS ultimately responded by updating their map of Puerto Rico emergency gotenna communication relays- NOT to add any of the 216 nodes, but to *remove* about 25 Gotenna relays known to no longer be on the island belonging to DHS Disaster Medical Assistance Team DMAT, Coast Guard, US Airforce, Piratas, Valor Response Team and others. They still have not removed the All Hands Gotenna units from USVI. But they, at least, have made an effort, albeit minimal and quite late.  It’s somewhat remarkable that they refused to do this for months and only completed the task LITERALLY as tropical storm Beryl dissipated AFTER hitting Puerto Rico. #SafetyThird 

Gotenna has finally issued the updated 5.0 (promised for January).  Initial impressions are that they have done a pretty damn good job – better late and correct than early and fubared. The bluetooth connection stability issues that plagued version 4.x seem to have been remedied so far.  5.0 seems to maintain and auto-restore bluetooth connection much more reliably – and messages seem to cache to a gotenna for delivery once connection is reestablished with the phone.  They’ve finally updated to 6 hops communication relay (up from 3).  They’ve provided a sweet new SOS emergency beacon feature with customizable emergency message which can even be triggered by the gotenna device without the phone by rapidly tapping the gotenna power button five times. *(It should be made clear that GPS position may be stale in headless mode and this doesn’t seem to work on all phones)*.

 

However, it’s not clear if the 6 hop limitation will apply to emergency SOS shout messages or whether the emergency SOS shouts will employ the SMS relay function.

Built on Gotenna SDK apps are starting to bear fruit.  Gliderlink (a free 3rd party app) seems to be providing great blue-team tracking (up to 62 miles away!!!!) on vanilla Gotenna mesh devices. Samourai Wallet seems to be getting ready to release TxTenna – an app to allow offline sharing of bitcoin.  Mesh Toolkit (only on iOS :((( provides some amazing scripting, automation, twitter and webserver backhaul options to allow for completing hops across the internet, IFTTT programmability, SQL queries, amazing geek shxt. WISH THIS WERE AVAILABLE FOR ANDROID!!! For example, you can have your home relay gotenna automatically respond to queries with updated gotenna battery level, iOs device battery level, backhaul connection status, iWatch augmented reality AR integration … it’s truly amazing.

The deadline for SDK app competition submissions has been pushed back- 30 days away: August 13 for a chance to win a fully-paid first class trip to NYC and up to $1500 in cash and another thousand or so in loot. Some other prizes for second and third place too. Anyone can enter – even if you don’t have a gotenna yet.

What taxpayers and Government oversight reform committees, reporters, watchdog groups (HELLO EFF) and IGs should be asking is… how much of the upwards of $900,000 in taxpayer funds were committed to the Gotenna PRO model which is wholly incompatible with the first responder, community, and NGO friendly Gotenna MESH device?  What Razoo, as the fundraiser, and Gotenna, as a “partner” in the Puerto Rico fiasco, should be asking is: “where tf are the 84 Gotenna emergency relay devices?”

In broader brush, with societal level implications, how do we put the United States Coast Guard LifeFlight or 911 or FEMA, for example, in touch with communities, with abuelas in the mountains that do not have fancy thousand dollar “PRO” gadgets when the towers invariably fall, the lines dip in puddles, poles shattered like toothpicks, no phone, no internet, no wifi…. People that most need help will likely only have an old version of an android Obama phone – with older versions of android. THEY need to be able to call for help. They need reliable information during and after a storm. Partnership needs to be made with NextRadio to use the FM / NOAA emergency broadcast messages.

Thinking constructively, for the devs, if Gotenna Mesh (900Mhz) is indeed wholly incompatible with Gotenna PRO model (140, 440Mhz) sdr that gov first response and leos will be using… can leo and first responder devices easily and reliably bridge the gap by running both Gotenna PRO and commercial public SOS Gotenna mesh apps and reliably supporting both simultaneously over bluetooth?  It strikes me as ironic that the PRO model CANNOT receive Emergency SOS shouts in cleartext over public airwaves, with full licensure and emergency exemption from FCC redtape. There’s literally no way to let First Responders .gov communicate with the public emergency SOS Gotenna mesh? #Irony

There has been a very very cool development in Puerto Rico. Just last week, a consortium of some serious players, scores of innovative entrepreneurs, students, ngos, startups, and non profits all came together to do a public collaboration, with the University providing free space, computers, internet, cafe? for what the makers call a hackathon. Several REALLY cool ideas have come from this with volunteers writing code and sharing ideas, collaborating toward reliable and usable emergency backup communications on the island. #CallForCode #MeshingWithData

Through all of this, some minor concerns remain; accordingly, these are the 20 best questions, that while likely never answered, may be worth pondering going forward:

1. Will Gotenna ever donate the remaining 216 units to Puerto Rico?
2. Will PR Reconnects or Gotenna ever build an actual critical backbone – as promised?
3. How many of the 84 have been donated or placed with communities or First Responders?
4. How many of the 84 have been deployed with solar, battery, iphone, satphone, or sms backhaul?
5. Will the SMS / SatPhone / Twitter medical relay backhaul ever be functional?
6. Will they ever publish the locations of the donated or the taxpayer funded public comms relays?
7. Will they ever provide for pruning stale emergency relay locations from the map at imeshyou.com to remove some of the no-longer functional gotenna emergency relays?
8. They have indicated that a hardware change will be necessary to allow auto-power restore. Is this coming before Hurricane Season really picks up? Will Mesh v2 include the GPS chip for true headless SOS and more intelligent mesh routing, especially for MOAN relay nodes?
9. They have indicated that the 6 hop functionality will be crippled with the next version and require a $9 subscription. Is this 6 hop limit artificially imposed on Emergency SOS broadcasts? Or will it remain unlimited?
10. Some phones are being reported to not work with the Emergency Beacon functionality. Will this be corrected and when?
11. Gotenna, cognizant of their very limited range should partner with Next Radio App or another FM radio app that could allow some form of the one-way emergency transmissions.
12. FEMA, DHS, and USCG should coordinate more with Gotenna as it is now a defacto emergency backup communications critical national infrastructure operating with public funding on public airwaves and employable to save many lives.
13. Will Gotenna, as a publicly funded communications common carrier using public communications frequencies, stand up and commit to defending the spirit, if not the letter, of the First Amendment?
14. Will Gotenna commit to working with other disaster communications options like Beartooth (another publicly funded mesh communications device using the exact same public ISM 902-927Mhz airwaves) or Sonnet labs or Globalstar Spot X or Garmin Inreach Sat phone devices or BridgeFy, Briar, Firechat?
15. Given that Gotenna cannot effectively moderate or curate their imeshyou.com map to maintain emergency node locations, will they move to a community moderated map? an open (opt-in) dynamic map? Or an open-source map like Open Street Maps, Open Signal, or Aftermath mapping?
16. At what point does a common carrier that we entrust with our data, taking millions of our taxpayer and consumer dollars, freely using public resource airwaves, start having an obligation to live up to certain common decencies?
17. Why would you build the Government Gotenna PRO to be wholly incompatible with the Gotenna MESH (the one used by everyone for Emergency SOS shouts?) How does a survivor reach one of these first responders? What best practices do you suggest? Any ideas?
18. Does a government contractor, paid with our taxpayer money, in compliance with statutes, necessarily have to provide some level of public open source access or  audit of the code created with gov funds? foia?
19. If a company is going to market to first responders for emergency, disaster “critical” communications, should that company perhaps have a help-desk open after-hours? Perhaps during hurricane season or when there’s 1, let alone 2, active hurricanes?
20. Why does it take several months to get a Gotenna curated map updated to remove emergency communication relays which are KNOWN by Gotenna to NOT EVEN EXIST anymore? Why months? What was the communication breakdown and how can we avoid that again? Are you following ICS/NIMS guidelines? Are there proper channels in place, as a corporation, for Gotenna to communicate directly with FEMA, DHS, and local first responders & municipal leos? #SafetyThird

https://medium.com/@frankbryan/update-7-13-emergency-decentralized-critical-mesh-communications-in-puerto-rico-usvi-and-199897f2ac7f

TLDR; not good but some hope and recent improvements in almost all areas.

If Gotenna REALLY wants to stand up and lead, they could start with donating the few hundred (or even a few dozen) they promised. With millions from the feds, 20–40,000 device sales, a grant to supply another 20,000 to NYC alone,Gotenna has the means but chooses not to do the right thing. IMHO. Though they are right… they are not in the helping people game; it’s likely not directly profitable immediately; they were only paid $4000 from the fundraiser. But this investment in Puerto Rico would pay off by jumpstarting Puerto Rican businesses founded by Boricua computer sciences, IT, electrical engineering students. The dividends would pay back a thousandfold, by exploding the iOS, Android, and PC/Mac app stores with customized emergency and first responder, hiking, sailing, kiteboarding apps tailored by geniuses in their own self-interest in every imaginable area which will in-turn drive new device sales, with a positive chain reaction of people seeing the network growing and buying to join. Gotenna is uniquely situated to address this and, it would be folly to miss this opportunity to help.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GoTenna took $4000 from a fundraiser that was to supply Puerto Rico with “hundreds” (“up to 300”) emergency, low-power communication devices for the “central mountainous region” to help “hundreds of thousands” of those hardest hit in at least “15 municipalities” without communications.  These donated gotenna mesh devices would have still allowed Puerto Ricans to communicate with their community and with first responders even when the towers fell or diesel wasn’t available.

The fundraiser to reconnect Puerto Rico was FULLY funded in November 2017.  However, as we approach April 2018, GoTenna and Daniela Perdomo, CEO, have simply washed their hands of their commitment -walking away with priceless promotion, accrued goodwill from the community, social media bump, $4000 in donated funds which were meant to help Puerto Rico and another million dollars in funds from FEMA / Homeland Security.  This isn’t the first time they’ve done this either.  They claimed to have helped USVI as well, however, ZERO permanently powered relays are shown on their imeshyou.com map.

In spite of their fiduciary duty over the fundraiser, as the organizer, and that owed to the beneficiaries and donors, they refuse to correct the record and allow falsehoods such as the crowdfunding website took 10% of the funds – which is bullshit. Razoo waived fees for hurricane relief fundraisers benefiting Puerto Rico – and have confirmed as much to me privately.  This allows Gotenna to pretend that less than $10,000 of donated funds lie fallow since November unused.  When exactly the opposite is true.

Instead of the promised hundreds of gotenna devices to provide communications to the central mountainous region – only 16 have been installed. Only 80 have even been shipped to the island – and this ceased in November. Gotenna is supplying 20,000 to New York City for free to businesses… and 20 at a time to affluent ski resorts… but when it comes to their promise to deliver a few hundred to Puerto Rico? Silence. Crickets. Will they respond? Correct the record? Or continue to delay and ghost the survivors? FOUR months ago, we could have built out a backup network. Now, with their dissembling, obfuscation, and lack of transparency, we barely have 2 months left before the next storms start arriving.  Make no mistake, when the towers fall again, the blood will be on their hands.

https://www.razoo.com/story/Gotenna-Mesh-Reconnects-Puerto-Rico

My suggestion: PR Reconnects and Javier Malave’ simply do not have the bandwidth to deploy the hundreds of emergency devices promised.  This doesn’t mean that GoTenna should just walk away though.  A fiduciary duty, a moral and ethical duty, and a binding contract with the people of Puerto Rico has been established with ample consideration flowing to GoTenna.  PR Reconnects isn’t the beneficiary, the people of Puerto Rico are.

The right thing to do is, nonetheless, send the remaining 216 Gotenna units to Puerto Rico. If Javier and PR Reconnects don’t have the bandwidth, cut out the middle-man.  Send the units directly to the geeks, the Computer Science departments of the Universities such as University of Puerto Rico Aguadilla, The Interamerican University, the University of Arecibo; University of Mayaguez; Universidad del Sagrado Corazon; send them to municipal leaders; send them to hospitals like Buen Samaritano.  The benefit of -this is that it’s truly a decentralized approach which grows the network organically with no single point of failure like PR Reconnects or Javier.  Additionally, by sending to the students directly you empower them to develop disaster communication applications using the GoTenna SDK which have never been envisioned.  Innovation will flourish, built-on-Gotenna(TM) apps will fill the play store.  This allows people (without relying on any middlemen) to opt-in and voluntarily place their nodes on the imeshyou.com map which has a positive feedback effect and encourages more people to buy their own gotennas to join this network they see growing in front of their eyes – in their own self-interest to gain access to this network; especially knowing that there are at least 15 Gotenna-Satellite gateway devices out there and every single Gotenna device can act as a relay between the internet and Gotenna to deliver SMS messages to those without Gotenna devices.  If GoTenna and Daniela Perdomo have a heart (or at least half a brain) they will live up to their promise and start shipping a few dozen gotenna devices to the students, the first responders, and the leaders of Puerto Rico.  When the storms on the horizon hit, GoTenna will be responsible for either the biggest failure to come, or the greatest success.  Here’s to hoping they do the right thing.